Making It Back
by Ai Tennshi
Summary: The Straw Hats all have miraculously made it back to Rayleigh...all except Luffy. What are they to do without their captain? Spoilers for Marineford arc.


_Disclaimer: I own nothing recognizable from One Piece._

_Author's Note: Spoilers for Marineford Arc._

**Making It Back**

Somehow, miraculously, they all found their way back to Rayleigh within the same few days. The first to arrive was Chopper, on the back of a brightly colored bird that carefully lowered him before Rayleigh.

"Where is everyone?" Chopper asked, eyes sparkling and scarcely able to wait to show Luffy and the others his new friend. Oh, how they would cheer! Luffy would love to ride the bird—Chopper had asked the bird to let Luffy ride him, and the bird (having heard innumerable stories about the awesomeness of Luffy) was only too delighted to comply.

But Rayleigh fixed Chopper with a steady look and told him calmly to wait.

"For what?" asked Chopper. "Where are they?"

"They're coming. Ought to be here within a week would be my guess."

Chopper was confused. "Coming? From where?"

Rayleigh grinned at Chopper. "You don't remember anything, do you? You shouldn't do that beast-transformation thing. It can't be good for you."

"I know but- What? What don't I remember?" Chopper's voice was going high, and he was talking faster.

"All of them were flicked away like you were. Each to a different island. It was the only way to save your lives. Unless one of you ends up deciding to stay wherever you landed, I expect your friends back anytime."

Rayleigh offered no more information, just held out a cotton candy. Sniffling, Chopper took the treat and ate it slowly.

It was the following day that the crew began arriving in quick succession. First Usopp arrived on the back of a large bug that dropped him unceremoniously and flew away. Usopp returned a little larger than he had been, and bearing fantastical stories about an island of thieves and the strangest plants in the world.

It was only a few hours after that that Franky had arrived on a small ship that apparently he had invented himself. He told them of the residence of some crazy inventor who had the coolest ideas regarding cyborgs. He showed them some renovations he had made on his own body, more than doubling his own power.

Less than an hour later came Brook and Zoro (and Perona, for some reason, though any threats she may have made were silenced by a glance at Usopp). They were not quite sure where they had been, and Zoro's story (told mostly by Perona) consisted for the most part of Zoro being lost. Brook, on the other hand, had saved a village, and received the ship as a gift in order to find his way back. Neither Zoro nor Perona could explain how they had found their way to Brook's ship by the makeshift raft in which they had set out, but everyone agreed that that wasn't important. (Except Perona, but no one wanted to listen to her.)

It was the next morning, after Perona had wandered off without stating whether or not she would be back, that the remaining crew arrived. Nami was lowered from a cloud in the sky in the morning, and expressed her relief that everyone was almost back together. She told them enthusiastically of the discoveries regarding the weather that she had learned in the sky, and then proceeded to hand Usopp a few tools and demand that he incorporate them into her new Clima Tact.

But just as such renovations were happily underway, a ship docked and Sanji and Robin alighted. Sanji's mouth may have been rather redder than usual, but the expression on Robin's face detracted any questions that might have been directed at Sanji.

"What's wrong?" Nami tried to ask, but Robin didn't seem to hear her. She merely looked around and seemed to see something in their expressions that discomforted her.

"Has _anyone_ been paying attention to the news?" she finally asked quietly.

Everyone blinked.

"No," Usopp, Franky, Zoro, Chopper and Brook replied at once. Sanji averted his eyes, already knowing what this was about.

"The island I was on didn't really have much contact with the outside world," Nami shrugged apologetically.

Robin closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself.

"What happened?" Nami asked, suddenly distinctly uneasy.

Robin opened her eyes. She looked around at each of them, then heaved a sigh. "Good, everyone's here. I-"

"Not Luffy," everyone chorused at once.

Robin's brow furrowed. "That's precisely why I asked if you'd been paying attention to the news. I very much doubt that Luffy will find his way back here."

Everyone stared.

"What, did he get himself involved in some big fight or something?" asked Franky.

"He'll be back on his feet in no time and come back here," said Usopp confidently.

"Yeah, we just might have to wait a little longer," said Chopper.

But Zoro, Nami and Brook couldn't express the same confidence, for Robin's expression suggested that she didn't believe this was the case.

"Remember that conversation we had about Luffy's brother—Portgas D. Ace?"

"Yes…" Nami said slowly. The ominous feeling grew.

"Ace had been captured by the Marines, and was taken to Marineford for public execution. The Marines meant to wage war on Whitebeard himself."

"What?" gasped Brook.

"That's crazy!" choked Usopp.

"It seems that Luffy learned of this—reports say he breached Impel Down and broke out a massive number of prisoners including Ivankov, Jinbei and Crocodile. Whitebeard and his allies showed up at Marineford…and Luffy did, too. To make a long story short, Luffy set Ace free, and then was attacked by Akainu. Ace got between them and died."

The Straw Hats' hearts skipped a beat.

"Ace…that Ace? Dead?" Usopp tried and failed to wrap his mind around the concept. The entire group could not grasp the enormity of the concept. Particularly those five who had met Ace simply could not believe that the man who Luffy could never beat, even without Devil Fruit powers, had simply vanished from the world.

"But…he'll be alright. He's always been alright. Even in the face of emotional devastation, he's always been alright." Nami's voice wasn't as confident as her words.

"In the face of his friends' devastation," corrected Sanji. "In the face of our problems, he makes it his business to make things right again."

"Has any of us actually ever seen Luffy in emotional devastation?" Zoro growled.

No one replied. The only thing anyone could think of was the incident of the duel with Usopp. Yet even that had been not devastation at what was being done to him, but a determination to keep what remained of his crew together during a crisis. In the end, Usopp hadn't even been gone for good.

"What do we do?" choked Chopper through tears that were running down his face.

"Normally, we can't set sail without captain's orders," said Sanji. "But I'd say that this time's an exception."

"Luffy's always been there for us," agreed Robin. "I'd say it's our turn to be there for him."

"And fight his demons for him?" asked Nami, shaking her head. "How? All our enemies have been physical. Kuro, Arlong, Krieg, Wapol, Lucci and what's-his-face that was dragging Robin down the bridge!"

"Luffy fought people for us," Chopper agreed. "Luffy doesn't need us to fight anyone for him."

"No," said Brook. "He needs us to be there. Imagine—he lost all of us, and then goes to save his brother only to lose him too. We can't bury the hollow in his life that was created by his brother's death. But we can show him that he's not alone—he still has us."

"If anyone is going to show Akainu hell, that one's going to be Luffy," said Franky. "It's our job to get Luffy back up to where he'll be able to beat the life out of that guy."

"Zoro?" called Nami, for the swordsman was just sitting there with his forehead to his sword, not moving nor saying a word.

"I'm thinking."

At that particular moment, no one felt like joking about the rare occasion. "About what?" asked Usopp.

"Luffy," Zoro replied. "He fights to protect us. Even me and Sanji—every one of us. He never fought to free us from past demons—he simply wanted us safe. He makes himself stronger in order not to lose us."

"So it'll have been like a knife in the gut when that Kuma guy took us all away right under his nose," said Sanji quietly, remembering with shame how he himself had ran straight at Kuma in anger, making it all the easier for Kuma to hit him away.

"But he couldn't help that! It wasn't his fault!" protested Usopp.

"No—and that's precisely why he'll have hated himself for it," said Franky. "If it had been that incident alone, he probably would have let himself off at working to get stronger, so that he never had to let it happen again. He would have been here with us now, laughing about how it was so great that we're all back together. And meanwhile, he'd have been making sure he got stronger and stronger."

"But then Ace died saving Luffy." Chopper's eyes grew wider as he began to truly comprehend the enormity of the event.

"Are you saying…that he might just…give up?" gasped Brook. It seemed so inconceivable of a captain like Luffy. And yet not one of them had the confidence to say so.

"What if we go to him and he says he's not being a pirate anymore?" sobbed Chopper.

Zoro's eyes went hard, and he stood up. "We don't know he'll say that until we hear it from him. Our captain may be a lot of things, but he isn't _weak_. If he's depressed, we don't know that we can't snap him out of it until we've tried. Old man!" He looked back at Rayleigh, who stood leaning against a tree behind them, a sad smile on his face. "You've got our ship, right?"

"That I do," said Rayleigh.

"But where do we go?" protested Nami. She looked at Robin. "Wait, Luffy didn't get caught, did he?"

"No, Law appeared and helped Luffy and Jinbei escape. They were pursued by the Serpent Empress."

"The _Serpent Empress!_" choked Franky. "Of the Shichibukai!"

"He'll never make it out alive!" sobbed Usopp.

Robin hesitated a moment. "I have a copy of the recording, so I'll show it to you once we're on our way, but…I have a theory that perhaps…the Serpent Empress herself is protecting Luffy."

Her crew-mates stared at her. She shrugged. "Call me crazy, but she seemed to be defending Luffy in battle."

"So…you're saying we should head to her home island?" asked Nami.

"Precisely."

"Rayleigh-san!" Nami said, turning to face him. He grinned.

"I thought you'd say that. So I took the liberty of lining the bottom of your ship with a bit of sea stone I happened to have on my hands. It's not as thorough as the Marines' ships, but it ought to suffice to get you to Amazon Lily. Come back when you've got your captain, and I'll coat your ship then. Oh, and I got you an Eternal Pose to Amazon Lily through some connections of mine."

The Straw Hat Pirates grinned at him. Then, as one, they ran towards their ship to set out to seek their captain.


End file.
